Choices
by Satu-D-2
Summary: Four years on. Christine has become Madame de Chagny and has settled happily with her husband. The Phantom has found a trade as a stall vendor. What will happen when they meet again? ExC


AN. So here we are again. For those who care (probably not many of you but I don't care :P) this is a fic I started in about 2007, started to improve in 2008, which then sat dormant in my computer until now. I went and saw Love Never Dies (which was great, but didn't make me cry) last night and started thinking about this again. So I decided to post it. So...here you go... Enjoy?

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><p><strong>Prologue<strong>

Christine jerked awake, her eyes streaming and her breath coming in hitching gasps. Her husband lay beside her, still sleeping calmly. He was facing towards her, one arm around her waist, but she pushed it off and stood up. She walked slowly over to a large mirror that rested on the far wall. The frame was made from carved gold, intricate and beautiful in both design and practice. The glass was always kept clean and sparkling, and reflected every inch of the room with precise detail.

Christine stood before it, taking in herself and the room behind her. She saw a slim woman, her dark curls tied up in a loose braid to prevent knotting. A long cotton nightdress floated around her form, making her look like a ghost in the gloom. Her brown eyes were wide, horror and despair obvious in them. The tears that were streaming down her face formed in her eyes and fell immediately.

Her eyes lit upon the sleeping figure in the bed, but no joy was in her gaze. Her husband, Raoul de Chagny, had never woken up at this moment. He had never heard her silent tears, had never comforted her in her hour of need.

"Farewell my fallen idol and false friend," she sang softly, barely realising the words were in her mind before they were out of her mouth.

She shook her head and scanned the mirror, searching for something that wasn't there.

Ever since the episode at the Opera Populaire four years before, she had been plagued with nightmares. None were, as many thought, of the Phantom's evil or of how he kidnapped her and almost forced her to be his wife. None of it was about that.

She thought back on the same dream she'd been having since that day, the dream that had haunted her nights and distracted her the days.

_A dark room, lit only by the soft glow of candles. The reflections fall out gently over a still pool of water. She is standing near a bed, a large circular nest of soft pillows and thick blankets. She looks down and sees Raoul sleeping in them, except he isn't sleeping, not really. His chest isn't moving, the light snores she usually hears are absent. Her Raoul is dead, and there is a rope around his neck._

_She turns and walks away, her sorrow over Raoul diminished by a strange longing. She cannot identify it, cannot imagine what could distract her from the death of her love. The silence that held sway over the scene is broken by the soft playing of an organ. The notes fall on her ears, and she is suddenly smiling. Then the mood changes; the key changes from major to minor. Suddenly the notes are playing a song only she and Phantom have heard, a song only they shared. _

"_This face which earned a mother's fear and loathing," a soft tenor sings out, and the sorrow, the heartbreak in that voice makes tears form in Christine's eyes. "A mask my first unfeeling scrap of clothing."_

_She walks forward, and the organ comes into view. Seated at the keyboard is the hunched figure of a man. His shoulders are shaking, and she rushes forward to comfort him. Before she can reach him, before her hands connect with the fabric of his shirt, he has disappeared._

"_Angel!" she screams, and it is not a scream of hatred, fear or revulsion. It is a scream of love, a scream of longing. _

_She turns, looking all around her, but Phantom is gone, and she won't ever see him again._

She shook her head, trying to turn her thoughts away from the dream. Raoul's soft snoring had ceased, and she turned.

"Christine, Christine," he said softly, patting the bed beside him. She listened momentarily for the other voice, blown in by the wind, but was disappointed. "Why are you up so late?"

She looked back at the mirror, before turning to see Raoul supporting himself on one elbow, his nightshirt highlighting his chest. She walked to him slowly, the tears still running unhindered down her cheeks.

"Oh, Christine," Raoul said, noticing them for the first time. She sat down on the bed and swung her legs back under the blankets. "Oh, darling." He kissed her hands, before kissing away all the tears on her cheeks.

"Raoul," she sighed softly, pressing closer to him. "I love you."

"I love you too," he said softly, between kissing away the tears. "You'll never know how much I do."

He wrapped his arms around her waist and held her close, stroking her back lightly. She hugged him back, but her mind was racing. This was love, wasn't it? This feeling she felt in her heart for Raoul had to be love. He was the only one she had felt these for, the only one she had ever considered for anything.

But what about the feelings she had felt for Phantom? The deep, moving feelings that seemed to come from her very soul. The sense of surrender she had felt when they sang together. The deep pulling in her very soul for him, even now as Raoul embraced her in their bed.

She shook these thoughts away, and lay back down with Raoul. He kissed her once more on the forehead, before she drifted away into sleep.

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><p><span>AN.<span> And there we go, the prologue of my first and probably only Phantom of the Opera fic. It's not finished yet but, like with My Brother (my DBZ fic) maybe posting this will give me the incentive to finish it. I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you with chapter 1 in good time :)


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